1.  THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD:  PART 1.

The following paragraph, relating to this poem, closes Shelley’s “Preface” to “Alastor”, etc., 1816:—­’The Fragment entitled “The Daemon of the World” is a detached part of a poem which the author does not intend for publication.  The metre in which it is composed is that of “Samson Agonistes” and the Italian pastoral drama, and may be considered as the natural measure into which poetical conceptions, expressed in harmonious language, necessarily fall.’

2.  Lines 56, 112, 184, 288.  The editor has added a comma at the end of these lines, and a period (for the comma of 1816) after by, line 279.

3.  Lines 167, 168.  The editio princeps has a comma after And, line 167, and heaven, line 168.

1.  THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD:  PART 2.

Printed by Mr. Forman from a copy in his possession of “Queen Mab”, corrected by Shelley’s hand.  See “The Shelley Library”, pages 36-44, for a detailed history and description of this copy.

2.  Lines 436-438.  Mr. Forman prints:—­ Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal Draws on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise In time-destroying infiniteness, gift, etc.  Our text exhibits both variants—­lore for ‘store,’ and Dawns for ’Draws’—­found in Shelley’s note on the corresponding passage of “Queen Mab” (8 204-206).  See editor’s note on this passage.  Shelley’s comma after infiniteness, line 438, is omitted as tending to obscure the construction.

1.  ALASTOR; OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.

“Preface”.  For the concluding paragraph see editor’s note on “The Daemon of the World”:  Part 1.

2.  Conducts, O Sleep, to thy, etc. (line 219.) The Shelley texts, 1816, 1824, 1839, have Conduct here, which Forman and Dowden retain.  The suggestion that Shelley may have written ’death’s blue vaults’ (line 216) need not, in the face of ’the dark gate of death’ (line 211), be seriously considered; Conduct must, therefore, be regarded as a fault in grammar.  That Shelley actually wrote Conduct is not impossible, for his grammar is not seldom faulty (see, for instance, “Revolt of Islam, Dedication”, line 60); but it is most improbable that he would have committed a solecism so striking both to eye and ear.  Rossetti and Woodberry print Conducts, etc.  The final s is often a vanishing quantity in Shelley’s manuscripts.  Or perhaps the compositor’s hand was misled by his eye, which may have dropped on the words, Conduct to thy, etc., seven lines above.

3.  Of wave ruining on wave, etc. (line 327.) For ruining the text of “Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions, has running—­an overlooked misprint, surely, rather than a conjectural emendation.  For an example of ruining as an intransitive (= ’falling in ruins,’ or, simply, ‘falling in streams’) see “Paradise Lost”, 6 867-869:—­ Hell heard th’ insufferable noise, Hell saw Heav’n ruining from Heav’n, and would have